We Talked to the Best Music Video Director in the North

At seventeen, when most of us were busy writing about our feelings on MySpace, Daniel Kragh Jacobsen was carrying around a video camera and turning those teenage feelings into a promising film career. Ten years later and just barely out of film school; Daniel has directed music videos for acts such as Rhye, When Saints Go Machine, Quadron and, most recently, Washed Out. His latest video won him a bunch of awards at the first Nordic Music Video Awards, so we caught up with him in Copenhagen to hear his thoughts on the Washed Out video, internet haters, and awkward run ins with topless video babes.

"All I Know" Washed Out by Daniel Kragh-Jacobsen on Vimeo.

VICE: So you recently came out as the top dog at the Nordic Music Video Awards, winning Best Director, Best Video, and Best Performance by an Actor for Washed Out’s “All I Know,” what was that like?
Daniel Kragh Jacobsen: It was amazing. I’m really happy to have gotten such a positive response with that video. This was the first Nordic Music Video Award ever, so it was pretty rad to be honored at that. The video was made in LA last year, so it was weird suddenly being in a theater in Oslo six months after it was released being reminded about that time [in LA]. The awards themselves are definitely inspired by the United Kingdom Music Video Awards (which is basically the “oscars” of music videos) and maybe we should consider making it all a bit more Scandinavian and earthly next time, that’s not something for me to decide.

But it’s great that people are taking responsibility and focusing on the development of music videos in the North.

You got a lot of critical acclaim for the video, but of course there’s always those anonymous YouTube commenters spouting angry, “this is such try hard hipster bullshit” comments. That's got to suck?
Oh man, you should have seen me when the video came out, I was going ballistic. I was almost depressed, seriously. The girl I was dating at the time was really cool about it though, she just looked at me and asked, “Are you seriously going to listen to what a bunch of people who have time to comment on YouTube are saying?” and of course my immediate response was “yes!” but then you just slowly start to realize that some people don’t like this but some people fucking love it. I never know if anything I make is good, I’m my own worst critic, but you have to learn what you can from the negative stuff and take the rest with a pinch of salt.

I read that the storyline for the video was based on one of your own personal experiences, what's the story with that?
So in the video there’s Viktor, who’s trying to get over his ex girlfriend Faye while she’s off dating an older guy. When I was younger I was dating a girl and it was actually me who ended it with her but, like in the video, she ended up finding herself an older and (at the time), more successful boyfriend with his own apartment and everything, and I just felt like total shit. I felt like killing both of them, I was so upset, and I tried to portray that emotion in Viktor, the pain of a first love lost. I didn’t smash up the guy’s car though.

Do you think the art of the music video is dying out now that the era of MTV is over? 
I feel like when people ask me this question it’s because they want me to say no, that they’re doing great, but it’s not really a yes or no answer. Everything has gone so quickly in the last 10 years, I think that creativity is rising but budgets have dropped quite a bit, and that’s a good thing because it has made us young directors start focusing on stories and actors - the things I like. However the music video really is a place to play and especially a place to learn. I mean I made six or seven really bad videos before I made my first good one. So it’s (sometimes) frustrating that labels and artists still have full creative control and influence, even though the director and others spending many hours for free investing themselves in it, and still the artists and label don’t always respect this.

But this is also something that you need to master and learn as a young director. How to compromise and how to choose your battles and fight only for what is really important. I’m still learning that for sure.

Actually, if you think about it even the huge budget guys like Robin Thicke with his “Blurred Lines” video, it’s really not much more than a backdrop, hot chicks, and some after effects. 
Want to hear a good Robin Thicke story?

Absolutely.
Well, when I was auditioning kids for the main role in my graduate film Turtle, the director of Blurred Lines, who is also represented by RSA, was auditioning naked girls and our times kind of overlapped. I think I started maybe 20 minutes after the last girl had left. So all of the people working at the office had heard that there were topless chicks in my audition room and kept trying to come in and sneak a peek but all I had to offer was some 12 year old kids. It was very awkward for everyone involved.

Photo taken from “Turtle” by Daniel Kragh Jacobsen

Sounds very awkward. So what’s the next big thing coming up for you? 
Well I’m starting this production company called New Land along with some colleagues of mine, Gustav Johannson and Casper Balslev, for commercial and music video work. We’re all directors, a couple of us are with the same production company internationally, RSA, and we compliment each other really well. Some of us are very good at storylines and casting, while others are better with visualization and so on. It works really well.

If you guys work together with other international production companies, why start a new one? 
Basically, it’s a place to call home. We’re all Scandinavian and it’ll be a small company with small offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen where we can all just work really closely together and stay focused. Denmark is home for me, and it will be for a while at least, so I wanted a base here.

How about video projects, what’s been keeping you busy there?
Besides New Land, I’m also launching my own site again with a refreshed design and two new commercials for Momondo and Nike.

You mentioned earlier that people can’t really live off of music videos anymore, does that directly correlate to the surge of commercials on your résumé? 
It’s definitely not uncorrelated. I’ve been really lucky to be able to work on commercial projects that have given me creative freedom and that I’m proud of. That being said, I’m really aching to get back to directing music videos or fictional work in general. In film school you learn to direct actors, create storylines, and to create something very personal, so it’s definitely a little strange to come straight out of school and do these commercial projects. But honestly creating good commercials is just as creative as doing fiction and music videos.  I’m learning that still as a director of commercials you really need a unique voice to succeed. It’s also a very unique beast to tame, because you have to put yourself in the heads of big companies and creative agencies and figure out how to make the film that they are imagining they want to do.

That’s interesting. It’s good to have a mixture of both commercial and fictional work and be busy in general.

I’m not complaining.

Neither are we. Thanks Daniel!

WebRep currentVote noRating noWeight